is a RISC microprocessor architecture created by the 1991
Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance (AIM).

'Power' (Performance Optimization With Enhanced
RISC) and was adopted from IBM's POWER architecture from their RS/6000 series.

The PowerPC is designed along RISC principles, and allows for a superscalar implementation. Versions of the design exist
in both 32-bit and 64-bit implementations. Starting with the basic POWER specification, the PowerPC added:

big or little-endian modes (requiring a reset)

single-precision floating point in addition to double-precision

additional floating point instructions at the behest of Apple

a complete 64-bit specification, which is backward compatible with the 32-bit mode

removal of some of the more esoteric POWER instructions, which are emulated in microcode

The first single-chip implementation of the design was the MCP601 and released in Apple's PowerMac in March 1994.